Glenn’s Comments (group member since Jun 20, 2011)

Glenn’s comments from the Ask Ayelet Waldman group.

Ayelet wrote: "Hardly hypocritical. Actually very typical of many Jews."

I'll back you up there. Most non-Orthodox Jews I know have some kind of amalgam of compromise about integrating Jewish traditions and religious injunctions with their lives.

And this is reasonable. The stuff presented as absolute commandments from G-d are often accretions of local practice in Jews' perambulations, anyway.

We don't (or are not supposed to) eat pork and shellfish because G-d told us not to. We don't eat it because it was a likely source of disease and infection in historic times, and people who had imprecations against such consumption tended to live longer.

I thought there was a fascinating tension in the book between settling/not settling that, having read some of your non-fiction, seems to be something you wrestle with, too.

Becca confounding her mother's expectations and "settling" for John, even though the two of them had a kind of perfect ease and resonance. Iris's quiet contempt for her husband's job, and his own feeling that he settled for that. The grandfather settling for playing music the way he wanted to instead of the way in which he knew he could become famous. Judy settling for a successful job, instead of perhaps a happy life. (Although everybody who lives in Maine works so hard, the best you can ask for is maybe endless toil.)

Settling seems like a giant crime. But it's also one you absolve the characters of. Am I settling for an easy argument here?